NGC 4565 - Needle Galaxy

NGC 4565, also known as the Needle Galaxy, is an edge-on spiral galaxy approximately 40 million light years from Earth. Astronomers believe that our own Milky Way galaxy would appear this thin if viewed edge-on.

To the upper left is galaxy NGC 4562 (59 million light years away), and the small smudge just below and to the right is galaxy IC 3571 (58 million light years away).

This is the first image taken with our new mount, an Officina Stellare direct drive polar fork mount, through an Officina Stellare RiLA 600mm f/5.0 telescope and an FLI ML16200 CCD cooled to -25C. All subexposures were unguided. 80 8-minute luminance shots collected detail, while 140 4-minute RGB images added color. In total, more than 20 hours of light was collected over six nights, at our observatory one hour west of Bangkok.